Down at the Swimmin' Hole

We're now into the second session of swim lessons at our local pool. Cooper loves the water and really looks forward to the lessons. We'll have next week off due to the holiday, which works out well for us since we'll be visiting Wisconsin for the 4th of July. Hopefully we'll have lots of pictures from there to share when we get back. Have a great holiday!

Garcon, a corner table, please.

Ah, yes, my favorite table at my favorite restaurant (I'm a regular here, you know). With a window for a view and a nice piece of artwork almost within reach of messy fingers, who could ask for anything more? Well, OK, maybe some nice carrots and apples would hit the spot...


As I always say, dinner should not only be nutritious, it should be fun as well. Laughter helps me digest my food, although some might suggest that this stuff doesn't really need much in the way of digesting. Although I've toned down one recently acquired aspect of my dinnertime fun - I'm not shooting my food right back out of my mouth as much these days - dinner still makes me laugh.

As you may be able to tell, I'm very proud that they've finally allowed me to eat from a spoon and bowl.
If you promise not to tell, I'll share with you my newly discovered method for cleansing your palate between courses...

Editor's note: Thanks to Genevieve for the correct spelling of Garcon ;-)

Man on the Move

Cooper and Sugar are ready to hit the road with Mommy. This is the first time Cooper went for a walk facing forward in the baby jogger - he's usually facing back toward Mommy, confined to the carseat that locks onto the "roll bar" you can see in front of him in this picture.

Half Birthday

On Cooper's 6-month birthday, he decided to relax with a little yoga. Here's our little "down-doggie" in plank position. Note that his knees are not touching - no cheaters here.

We also practiced our sitting up (not spitting up - no practice needed there).

Weekend in the Mountains

We spent last weekend in the mountains of western North Carolina. Thanks to a couple of friends who are getting married (Thank you, Craig and Suzanne, for a great weekend!), we managed a relaxing weekend at a beautiful cabin near Blowing Rock, NC.

Of course, while we're in the mountains, sitting on a cozy swing on the deck is not the only way we know how to relax. There are, after all, plenty of trails to hike in the Appalachians.

And mountains to summit. Here we are hiking atop Grandfather Mountain.

Tasty Toes

On a recent trip out of state, Cooper snacked on whatever was available...

Front Of The Line

Instead of posting an actual picture, we're going to try directing you to one that was professionally taken (scroll down, you'll find it).

How to get to the front of the line at the Beer Festival:

http://www.allaboutbeer.com/wbfraleigh/2006photos4.html

After the dunk

This is Cooper after his first swimming lesson. He came out smiling even though we dunked him under at the end of class. He was startled and cried a little but it didn't take long for him to recover. We knew we were in for cold water when we found the teacher wearing a wet suit for class!

Zoom Zoom

I think somebody likes his new car.

I came up with way too many captions for this last picture and couldn't decide, so I'll leave it up to you to come up with your own.

Our Other Kids

Sugar likes to pose in natural settings. This is typical of the smile she usually has on her face. She's quite taken with her new little brother, often offering to help clean up his face after he's done eating apples, sweet potatoes or pears (or peaches, peas, carrots, etc. for that matter).

Bacchus, on the other hand, prefers the comforts of the indoors. He is now showing signs of actually realizing that he has a new little brother. In typical cat fashion, Bacchus generally ignored Cooper for the first couple of months. Within the last month or two, however, his natural curiosity has gotten the better of him and he now sniffs and nuzzles Cooper much the way he does Sugar. He is, however, much more adept than Sugar at avoiding grabby little hands and hasn't lost any fur to his new brother.

Mmmmm good eats

Sweet potatoes.... my favorite! Same color going in as coming out. I started eating "solid food" about a month ago and I can't get enough, especially apples, sweet potatoes and carrots. On the second try I even gobbled up peas (while Daddy was gagging)!

Ready to swim

Who says I have to wait 30 min after eating to get in the pool?!

Cousins

Autumn, Max and Cooper

Amanda, Lisa, Cooper and Addison

Sink or Swim (or Bathe)

I was hoping to have a picture of Cooper's new cousin, Addison, but Earthlink appears to be having some sort of problem transmitting our email messages into our Inbox. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

In any case, here's our little ham...

Last-minute note: the game just ended - Go Canes! Hey, even if you're not the biggest hockey fan on the planet, it's still fun when the home team wins.

Big News

Amanda and Keith welcomed Addison Lynn into their family just 9 1/2 hours ago. Born around 1am, she weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 6.5 lbs (it was late when Lisa called and I didn't get the exact details). Mom, Dad and Addison are all doing well. Congratulations!!!

Home Alone

With Lisa and Cooper off to visit Amanda, Keith and Addison for a couple of days, I'm left here to live the bachelor life. Of course you know what that means... sleeping late, watching TV, ordering takeout and... and... I know there's something else... oh yeah, projects around the house. Before I get started on those, however, here are a few more pictures.

On a recent trip to Atlanta, Cooper cooled off with his first dip in the pool. He's signed up for swim lessons starting in a couple of weeks, so it's a good thing he enjoys the water.

After a long day, Cooper likes to relax - sometimes accompanied by his big sister:

Please let me know if we're boring you:

OK, that's probably enough for now. I hope everyone has a great Sunday. -Randy

More Recent Stuff

With any luck, we'll be able to update this on a daily basis. With a 5-month old, however, that's going to be a challenge.

Anyway, here are a couple of more recent pictures.

OK, that first one is actually from March, but I couldn't resist. After all, how often does one get to see four generations of a family in one place?

OK, I'm not going to claim to have the formatting for this blog down yet, but hopefully the pictures will entertain you enough.

I have a feeling that these three pictures are going to slow down the publishing of this post, so I'll leave this one as is.

More Photos

OK, let's see if I can get the photo to work itself into the text correctly.

Looks like either our connection is not working or Blogger is not working. Hopefully this will get posted. We'll see.

Experimenting with posting pictures

Need to work on getting some pictures on here. Forgive me if I mess this up. -Randy

OK, evidently the picture is inserted above the text. I'll keep trying.

Getting Started

I'm trying this out originally as a way to post to friends' blogs. We'll see where it goes from there.